Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

388

Date

2011

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Business Administration

Concentration

Management Information Systems

Committee Chair

Jasbir Dhaliwal

Committee Member

Emin Babakus

Committee Member

William Kettinger

Committee Member

Robin Suzanne Poston

Abstract

Information systems (IS) research and practice have recognized the need to move the IS field to a more service oriented paradigm. This requires a good understanding of how IS services are evaluated and the factors that influence the perceptions of service performance. Measures of IS service quality have provided an insight into the rational/technical factors that influence the evaluation of IS services. Recently, the need for the investigation of additional factors that influence IS service evaluations has been recognized. One such factor that can influence the evaluation of an IS service is the emotional response that the IS service elicits in a recipient. Emotional responses play a major role in building attitudes, beliefs and behavioral intentions. However, IS service research has focused more on the rational aspects of these phenomena while largely ignoring the emotional aspects when explaining IS service evaluations. This research seeks to provide a better understanding of how individuals evaluate IS services by focusing on the salient characteristics of the IS service that can influence these evaluations. To achieve this, the research focuses on two research objectives: (1) to investigate the how the individual components of IS service evaluations – the emotional and rational evaluation components – impact various behaviors associated with the IS service and (2) to investigate how specific, theory driven service characteristics impact the emotional and relational components of IS service evaluation. A controlled experiment is used to investigate IS service evaluations and the characteristics of IS services that influence them. Results suggest that both emotional and rational components of IS service evaluations have significant impacts on behavioral intentions associated with the IS service. Furthermore, findings indicate that while the specificity of service output impacts both the emotional and rational evaluations of the IS service, the complexity of the service task only influences the emotional component by increasing the level of emotional evaluations associated with the service. Proximity between service provider and service recipient was found to have no significant impact on the emotional evaluation of the service.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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